Friday, July 10, 2009

EPCOT 25TH ANNIVERSARY - a special celebration - Universe of Energy Original Artwork

In tribute to Epcot 30th celebration, here is the part seven of a series of articles about the Epcot attractions original artwork.

In this one we will have a closer look to the original renderings for the Universe of Energy pavillion, this wonderful attraction which take us back 200 million years in the past, at the age of dinosaurs, and then into the future. As always, click on each picture to see them in big size. Everybody is ready? Let's go!

The first one above show the exterior architecture of the wedge-shaped pavillion, by daylight. And here below is a picture of the WDI model.

The two next renderings shows the original pre-show. This pre-show was changed when the new version of the attraction with Ellen De Generes opened. But the original one was stunning with this "Kinetic Mosaic" created by Czech filmmaker and artist Emil Radok.

If you've never seen this unique pre-show, don't worry, i have found for you a youtube video of it, and here it is below!

Before the famous dinosaurs sequence, after guests entered in a first theatre.
A very good description is done by the excellent Universe of Energy companion site:
Theater I is a "chameleon" of a space, acting as both the beginning and end points of the Universe of Energy ride. It's here where guests first board the Travelling Theater, and where their adventure begins--with a dramatic film introduction on the origins of Fossil Fuels. From here, guests are sent into the "reality" of what they've just seen, as the Travelling Theater effortlessly whisks them away into the murky and forbidding Primeval Diorama.

The Travelling Theater returns to Theater I for the finale of the show--once a spectacle of light and color, in which the Theater was completely transformed, now a low-key conclusion to Ellen's nightmare, and a poignant reminder that we are both capable of and responsible for charting our Energy future.

The rendering below showing a scene from the first version.

Then came the fantastic Primeval world scene with the dinosaurs. I think that everyone who did the attraction remember this magic moment when the vehicles starts to move , the curtains goes up and the dinosaurs appear in the dawn of time.

On the top is a close shot of the Tyrannosaur vs Stegosaur sequence, and here is a rare picture of the imagineers at work during the installation of these two giants creatures, here still under their plastic protection.

A close shot on the rendering of the volcano sequence...

And a rare picture of a WDI imagineer at work on this volcano.

At the end of the Primeval world sequence, all the vehicles come back in a theatre where guests "return to the present". After they learned the origin of fossil fuels the guests will see how "a wide array of energy sources would meet the growing energy demands of the future". Here is two renderings of the original show.

Some of you might not remember it, but there was a post-show "Exxon's Energy Exchange", which was located in Communicore East.

This last rendering is a rare WDI artwork for a post-show scene, and, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that this fantastic scene was never realised.